Membership Directory

Dharakorn Chandnasaro studied Thai theatre and dance, ballet, and contemporary dance at Srinakharinwirot University in Bangkok, Thailand. In 2015 he received his Dr. Fine and Applied Arts degree in Dance and Performance from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. He also completed certificates in Elementary and Intermediate Labanotation from Dance Notation Bureau in New York, USA. His research interested are creative dance, dance notation, movement analysis, ethnochoreology, Thai theatre and dance, Southeast Asian dance, and gender diversity performing arts. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor and Chair of Department of Dance, Faculty of Fine Arts at Srinakharinwirot University in Bangkok, Thailand.

Melanie Clarke trained at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, U.K. She has a BA Honours in Dance Theatre and an MA degree in Dance Studies (distinction) focusing on Education, Dance Documentation and Reconstruction, and Choreography. In 1998 Melanie joined the Trinity Laban faculty and has had a number of management posts including BA1 Coordinator, Diploma in Dance Coordinator and is currently Programme Leader for the Dance Diploma Programmes. She is a Teaching Fellow of Trinity Laban and a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She teaches Release-based technique, Choreological Studies, improvisation and choreography as well as creating new choreographic work on the students and tutoring student led projects. Melanie has also taught independently for dance companies such as; The Cholmondeleys and Featherstonehaughs, and Tanzcompanie Giessen as well as on International Summer Schools. She has danced with a variety of companies including Dance Republic (Sheffield); Twisted Collision (Manchester); Henrietta Hale and Co, Ben Ash & Rachel Lopez (London). Her choreographic work includes independent solo and group works and commissions, touring to venues such as The Lillian Baylis Theatre, Laban Theatre, Michaelis Theatre, The Place, the Bloomsbury Theatre in London and the Nakano Zero Theatre, Tokyo, Koblenz Stadttheater, TanzArt Geissen, Germany. As a choreographer she explores the relationship between expressive and formal structures in movement as well as investigating the communicative use of energy. As an educator her aim is to enable understanding through demystification of bodily and artistic processes. This is engendered by her knowledge of anatomy and physiology (with a focus on Fascial systems) as well as Rudolf Laban’s praxis and supported by her creative practice. Her research encompasses choreographic practice and movement analysis. She has scored Yvonne Rainer’s Trio A (with Jouke Kolff) which she has also reconstructed on students at Trinity Laban as part of repertoire projects and also for the MOVE: Choreographing You exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London in 2010. She collaborated with Valerie Preston-Dunlop on the re-creation of Laban’s Swinging Temple and contributed to Preston-Dunlop’s book Laban Man of Theatre. Her book entitled Essential Guide to Contemporary Dance Techniques is due for publication by the Crowood Press in March 2020.

Photo 2019 by James Keates

ICKL Treasurer, 2024-2027

Estelle Corbière studies Kinetography Laban with Noëlle Simonet in Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNSMDP). She graduates in 2010. In 2013, she collaborates with the directors Marion Crépel and Bertrand Guerry for the documentary Écrire le mouvement, which presents different uses of notation in the choreographic, educational and therapeutic fields. She was awarded grants by the Centre National de la Danse (France), Support for Research and Heritage in dance, for the notation of the choreographies of Olivier Dubois, Révolution in 2013 and Tragédie in 2014. She recreates Les Caractères de la danse of Francine Lancelot, based on the score written by Béatrice Aubert, for the piece Caractères of Bruno Benne. She has been teaching Kinetography Laban at the CNSMDP since 2021.

Professor Emerita of Dance, University of California, Irvine. Certified Professional Labanotator and Teacher. Notator of works by Balanchine, Robbins, Graham, Limón, McKayle, Jean Erdman, Daniel Nagrin, Joyce Trisler, Isadora Duncan, and others. Notator for the American Dance Legacy Initiative, ADLI’s New Dance Group Project, and for Chinese dance projects at University of Iowa and University of Hawai’i. Notator for Daniel Lewis’s book The Illustrated Dance Technique of José Limón; also notated technique fundamentals of Hanya Holm. Reconstructed works by Humphrey, Weidman, Holm, Tamiris, Nijinsky, Humphrey, Eugene Loring, David Parsons, and Eve Gentry. Fellow of ICKL since 1991.  Research Panel member 1991-1995.

Raphaël Cottin studied classical and contemporary dance at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNSMDP) between 1992 and 1999, and then graduated in Kinetography Laban in 2009 after studying with Noëlle Simonet. He worked for several choreographers and dances now for Thomas Lebrun at the Centre chorégraphique national de Tours (France) and tours with him in France and around the world (South America, Canada, Europe, Russia, China). He obtained a research grant from the French Ministry of Culture in 2010 in order to work on the latest symbols created in LMA in “Shape”, under the tutelage of Angela Loureiro (CMA-LIMS), regarding his notation skills. He is also choreographer for his own company La Poétique des Signes (www.lapoetiquedessignes.com) and uses Kinetography Laban in many aspects of his work. He became Fellow of ICKL in 2013 and was the onsite organizer of the 29th ICKL conference in Tours in 2015. [Photo © Frédéric Iovino]